cough.cough.

I can't stand it when people cough. Not because of the germ issue either, just because it's incredibly irritating. It's a little ridiculous because people can't usually control a cough- if they're sick, they're sick- but the constant coughing gets under my skin. The girls are constantly coughing. The oldest and youngest pretty much have a cold for the entire fall/winter/spring, and the middle one has asthma that results in her coughing whenever she runs or exerts herself (and when she has a cold, obviously). This annoys me to no end. My response? I tell them to stop (like they can) and threaten them with cough medicine. This seems to be somewhat effective since they hate it, and usually gag and eventually vomit when forced to take it. We've tried all kinds and flavors, with little success. The "thin strips" work as a last resort for the middle one, but not for the other two. So in order to avoid the medicine route, they suppress their coughing. Hopefully they don't suffer any long term negative effects from all those uncoughed coughs.